Structured Smoothing for Superresolution of Multispectral Imagery Based on Registered Panchromatic Image

Abstract

Method and system for creating a fused image from an image pair. The method includes obtaining (204) image data defining a first image of a panchromatic image type and a second image of a multi-spectral image type. The first image has a first spatial resolution and a first spectral resolution. The second image has a second spatial resolution which is lower than the first spatial resolution and a second spectral resolution higher than the first spectral resolution. The first image and the second image are fused (216) to initialize a fused image having the first spatial resolution and the second spectral resolution. A blurring function is used (220) to help form the fused image.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]1. Statement of the Technical Field[0002]The invention concerns image processing, and more particularly an image processing method which includes smoothing a fused image pair comprising a panchromatic image and a multispectral image.[0003]2. Description of the Related Art[0004]In the field of remote image sensing, two common types of images include panchromatic imagery and multi-spectral imagery. Panchromatic imagery is imagery that is obtained by a remote sensing device with a sensor designed to detect electromagnetic energy in only one very broad band. This one very broad band typically includes most of the wavelengths of visible light. Panchromatic imagery has the advantage of offering very high spatial resolution. In contrast, multi-spectral imagery is typically created from several narrow spectral bands within the visible light region and the near infrared region. Consequently, a multi-spectral image is generally comprised of two or more image d...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013]According to another aspect, the invention includes a computer processing system programmed with a suitable set of instructions for creating a fused image from an image pair comprising a high resolution panchromatic image and lower resolution multi-spectral image. The system includes a data store for storing image data defining a first image and image data defining a second image. The first image type is a panchromatic image type and the second image type is a multi-spectral image type. The first image has a first spatial resolution and a first spectral resolution. The second image has a second spatial resolution lower than the first spatial resolution. The second image also has a second spectral resolution higher than the first spectral resolution. The computer processing system is programmed for fusing the first and second images as described above. Further, the computer processing system is programmed for performing the blurring process as described herein.

Problems solved by technology

However, multi-spectral images typically have a lower spatial resolution as compared to panchromatic images.

The first problem concerns a need for registration of the two images.

Conventional algorithms utilized for performing the image fusion process suffer from several limitations.

As such, the PSF that is used is not necessarily an accurate representation of the true PSF for a sensor system.

Further, a pre-computed PSF will not contain information specific to a given image pair such as residual shift error in the registration and artifacts of image preprocessing.

Images